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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838639">Winter Nights and Christmas Lights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle'>thepointoftheneedle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Riverdale (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christmas Fluff, F/M, First Kiss, High School AU, Miracle on Elm Street, Pop is sick, Southside Jughead, but gets better, the blue and gold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:42:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,592</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe, open 24 hours a day for eighty years, except that one time in the riots. But now, on a cold day in early December, Jughead finds it locked and dark. He enlists Betty to help him investigate why. This is pure Christmas fluff. There are reindeer sugar cookies, the Pussycats singing Mele Kalikimaka and first kisses.<br/>It was inspired by an image created by redcirce to whom this is gifted as a thank you for making and sharing it.<br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Home for the HoliDale</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Winter Nights and Christmas Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcirce/gifts">redcirce</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door of the Blue and Gold office flew open.  It crashed against the wall with a thud that rattled the high shelves, dislodging a flurry of dust to sprinkle down onto Betty in a parody of the snow beginning to settle outside. She was working late, alone in the pool of yellow light cast by the desk lamp, editing Kevin’s party season fashion column as Elvis sang Blue Christmas on her holiday playlist.</p><p>“I have terrible news, devastating tidings… and hold the front page!” gasped Jughead, flushed and panting, his beanie, frosted with snowflakes, slightly askew on his dark curls.</p><p>Generally, Jones was relaxed to the point of torpor, slouching along the hallways, fists jammed into his pockets, eyes on the ground.  He seemed more susceptible to gravity than other people, never standing when he could slouch into a chair, never sitting when he could lie down, long arms and legs seeming to ooze from a couch to pool on the ground.  Now however he seemed to have been electrified.  He was all jagged angles, jutting knees and elbows, his jaw and chin especially sharp.  </p><p>“What is it Jughead?  Did you finally get to the bottom of the Sloppy Joe conspiracy?”</p><p>He huffed impatiently.  “Pop’s is closed!”</p><p>That made Betty look up from her keyboard in surprise.  “What are you talking about?  Pop’s doesn’t close.  Not ever.”</p><p>“Well, that one time, in the riots.  But only while they were fixing the broken windows,” Jughead, ever the pedant, corrected her.  “But it’s dark now. The door’s locked, I checked.  Twice.”</p><p>Betty could imagine Jughead’s dismay when his booth was inaccessible to him.  Since he’d transferred to Riverdale from Southside High, he could be found in that booth for hours on end, typing and gorging himself on whatever deep fried delicacies Pop sent his way.  She had no idea what kind of financial arrangement was in place between them but she suspected that Jug’s continued patronage was doing nothing for Pop’s profit margins. </p><p>Back in elementary school the three of them had been good buddies, Betty and Archie and Jughead. They were the three musketeers, eating cookies in Archie’s treehouse, lying on an old rug in her yard, side by side on their bellies, to read Nancy Drew mysteries, riding their bikes around the block, taking turns because Jug didn’t have his own bike, scooting to the store to buy candy, she and Jughead with one roller skate each.  That had ended when Jughead had moved to the Southside and, apparently, tried to burn down his new school.  Her mom had absolutely forbidden her from having anything to do with “that little hoodlum.” She had raged and cried but eventually she had no option but to submit.  Neither she nor Archie had any idea where their pal had moved, only that he was somewhere on the wrong side of the tracks, literally and metaphorically. The three musketeers were no more.  </p><p>Then, years later,  Southside High closed its doors for the last time, finally dragged under by drugs and gang violence and a chronic lack of funds.  As editor of the Blue and Gold she had been aware of the Red and Black, Southside High’s student newspaper, as well as the student journalism award that it won, against all the odds.  Accordingly she asked Ms Bell for the names of the transfer students who had listed “school newspaper” on their transcripts so she could try to recruit them.  She shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the editor was one Forsythe “Jughead” Jones. The Southside kids had turned up at Riverdale High in a pack, all black leather and tobacco smoke, tattoos and smart mouths.  And at the head of the pack was Jughead, their reluctant leader, a sardonic eyebrow lifted in her direction and a silent fist bump for Archie.</p><p>She invited him to be joint editor of the Blue And Gold but he turned her down flat.  “I’m not interested in having to toe some Northside party line, Cooper.  I’ll write for you but I have to have complete freedom.  If you have the courage to publish my stuff then you can have it, if not I’ll take it elsewhere.  Agreed?”  He’d been leaning against the door frame of the student lounge, his familiar blue eyes guarded as he anticipated rejection. She had swallowed hard, nodded and told him the deadline for copy before scurrying away to try to catch her breath and calm her frenzied blood in the girl’s bathroom.  </p><p>Back in sophomore year she had imagined that she had a crush on Archie.  Veronica’s arrival in Riverdale had put paid to that fantasy.  Now she realised that she had been attracted to the idea of a boyfriend, not to Archie himself.  He had seemed safe and familiar.  She had been able to imagine laughing with him over milkshakes or enjoying his protective arm around her shoulder at the movies.  When she allowed herself to imagine how it would be to be Jughead’s girlfriend, she had a very different set of images.  She imagined him shoving her back against the doorframe that he had been leaning against, tilting her head to one side with his hand and devouring her lips. Her hands would reach back into his hair, his beanie falling, to lay discarded on the floor.  She imagined her sweater lying next to it and gasped at the image.  When she put a hand to her cheek she found it burning.  There was a strange, swirling, flipping sensation in her belly and her heart was beating much too fast.  It was much more thrilling than the imaginary dates with Archie had been.</p><p>Often, as the semester progressed, they would talk about the next issue of the newspaper in the Blue and Gold office, her sitting on the edge of her desk, him slouching against the bookshelves.  She would imagine how it would be if she could summon the brazenness to part her knees a little.  He might step into the space that her invitation offered.  He might put his rough palms on her thighs, might push her short skirt higher still.  She had to run her wrists under cold water to calm her hectic pulse. </p><p>She had no option but to admit to herself that she liked Jughead, liked him and lusted after him, to be more precise.  He, however,  was impossible to read.  She had no idea if he was interested in her at all.  He willingly spent time with her but he might still see her as the neighbour girl with whom he shared a completely innocent friendship.  The young women of the Southside were undoubtedly sexier, more mature and worldly with their kohl rimmed eyes, mesh tights and cropped tops.  She couldn’t imagine how she could compete with them, clad in overalls and chucks, never even having been kissed.</p><p>Now he was waiting for her to respond intelligently to his scoop, standing there with the dark wave of his hair across his excited eyes, the pink flush on his cheekbones from his hurried journey back from Pop’s, and all she could think was that she very much wanted him to be the first boy to kiss her.  “Come on Betts, don’t just gawp like a dummy.  What do you think it means?”</p><p>She focused on the matter in hand rather than his slim hips and dangling suspenders. “Do you think something happened to Pop?” she asked, concerned.</p><p>“We could ask his mom,” Jug suggested.  “Well, you could, I guess.  If I turn up at an old lady’s door in the dark she’ll call the cops.”</p><p>“Pop has a mom?” she queried, surprised.  She had no idea how old Pop was but too old to have a mom, surely.</p><p>“Betty everyone has a mom,” he laughed before pausing to correct himself. “Well almost everyone.  I know where she lives.  My dad did a few odd jobs for her when Archie’s dad laid him off.”</p><p>“Come on, we’ll go together,” Betty replied, grabbing her jacket and heading out to the parking lot.</p><p>She looked longingly at his motorcycle where it was parked next to her mom’s station wagon and then rummaged in her backpack for the keys.  </p><p>“Betts?” he said, quietly.</p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Did you want to take the bike?  I have a spare helmet.”</p><p>“Oh no, I couldn’t.  My mom would be so mad.”  She could hear her own voice, too high, too manic.</p><p>“Well I’m not inviting her.  Come on Coop, take a risk.  You might like it.”  He was smiling at her, but this wasn’t the open uncomplicated smile that he had worn when she had baked him treats in third grade, there was a darker edge to this smile.  It wanted something other than a cookie.</p><p>“Ok, I guess it’ll be quicker anyway, there might be traffic.”</p><p>“Yeah, that seven p.m. traffic is a killer,” he agreed, both of them conspiring in the lie.</p><p>She did like the bike.  She liked the freezing air against her face, she liked his warm back encased in leather, she liked the texture of the embroidered snake against her chest, she liked the vibration.  By the time they dismounted she was blushing and her breathing was erratic.  “Hey Betts, were you scared?” he asked solicitously, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking into her eyes in a way that really didn’t help at all.  </p><p>Pop’s momma was home.  Betty explained that they had been worried to find the diner locked and dark and she stood aside to let them into her overheated and rather cluttered home.  She was, like Pop, of indeterminate age.  She might have been seventy seven or ninety seven. She certainly had all her faculties and, as she bustled about the kitchen to bring them hot chocolate and reindeer shaped sugar cookies, she told them what had happened.  “Terrence was at the diner this morning, starting on the Christmas decorations.  He had a pain in his shoulder and he was finding it hard to reach up to pin the twinkle lights. He called my grandson to go over to help him.  Well, Joseph took one look at him and told him he didn’t need help with any decorations, he needed an ambulance.  They came and took him right in to Riverdale General.  My daughter took me over there to visit with him when the doctors had seen him.  There’s some plumbing in his heart that’s gone wrong and they’re going to fix it with some new piping before it stops working.  So, I’m sorry to say there won’t be any burgers for a few weeks yet.  Terrence doesn’t trust anyone to run the place for him and no-one is going to put in the hours he does.”</p><p>Back at the Blue and Gold the next day Betty wrote up the story and put it on the Blue and Gold website.  She printed the front page and Jughead took it and taped it to the locked front door of the diner so, by that afternoon, the whole of Riverdale knew that Pop Tate was in the hospital in a grave condition and they worried and fretted for him. Betty called Mrs Tate a few days later to enquire about  Pop’s surgery.  She posted the news and she and Jug hurried to the diner to replace the notice on the door.  Around the icy doorstep they found an array of greeting cards sealed in plastic bags against the weather, as well as a few townsfolk, participating in a kind of impromptu vigil.  While he gathered up the get well messages, she pinned up her news. ”Pop Tate Surgery a Success!  Patient expected to make a full recovery.”  As they walked away they heard a cheer from the bystanders and smiled to each other.</p><p>Over the next ten days Betty and Jug updated Riverdalians regularly on Pop Tate’s recovery.  They stopped by his momma’s house to deliver the many cards and gifts that had been left outside the diner and partake of her never ending supply of festive baking. One afternoon Betty was busy with Model UN so Jughead said he would make the delivery by himself.  She told him to bring her a gingersnap if Mrs Tate had made any and fought back an inappropriate urge to kiss his cheek as he left.  When he met Betty later he seemed preoccupied, but all her questioning got her was a gingerbread Santa.  He did tell her,  however, that Pop was able to have visitors at last.</p><p>In Pop’s hospital room the next day they were delighted to see that he looked pretty well for a man who had recently endured a triple bypass.  They told him how people had been stopping by the diner to read Betty’s updates on his condition and Jughead reminisced about all the ways in which Pop’s burgers were the most perfect culinary creations in the world.  Pop chuckled and his eyes twinkled as he listened to their chatter. Eventually the nurse came in to usher them away and Jughead said “Pop, you look after that heart.  We need you.” </p><p>Pop looked at them seriously as he replied, “The doctors and the nurses have helped me so much but you kids, letting me know that the town was thinking of me, well that helped mend my heart twice as fast.  There’ll always be a strawberry milkshake and an order of fries at Pop’s for you two.”</p><p>As they headed out to the bike, pulling on mittens and wrapping their scarves more tightly, Jughead seemed deep in thought.  “Betts?” he said, eventually.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Pop said he’s going to be discharged on Thursday evening.  That’s Christmas Eve.”</p><p>“Yeah? He gets to have Christmas with his family. That’s great news right?”</p><p>“It is.  But I’m just thinking, when they drive him home he’s going to go right past the diner, and it’s dark and locked up.  All along the street, all the other places are lit up for the holidays but the diner looks desolate.  I kind of don’t want him to see it like that.  It’s too sad.”</p><p>“So what do you want to do?” she asked.</p><p>“I think we should get the keys, put up the decorations and have everyone come down and welcome him back, like cheer or whatever.”  </p><p>Betty agreed it was a fine idea.</p><p>They picked up the keys from Mrs Tate once school let out on the 23rd and headed over to the diner.  There in the middle of the restaurant they found the huge box of lights that Pop had been forced to abandon when his big heart started to give out.  Jughead found the ladder out back and, grabbing the hammer and tacks, he waited for Betty to pass him the first string of lights.  Betty began to mutter softly under her breath and didn’t pass the lights.  “What’s up Betts?” he asked, a little impatiently.</p><p>“It turns out that Pop is the worst kind of Christmas criminal.  He must have just dumped all the lights into this box last year and they’re tangled like you wouldn’t believe.  Come on you’re going to have to help me out here."  Jughead climbed back down the ladder and tried to grab a handful of flex from the box.  “Hey, stop!” Betty cried and he stepped back abruptly.  “You can’t just pull it like that, it’ll tangle even more and we’ll never be able to unknot it.  Just stand there.”  </p><p>Betty began to patiently unravel the strands of lights, telling Jug to hold out his long arms and winding the cord around his wrists like a skein of knitting yarn so it didn’t knot again as soon as she separated it.  Once she had an unsnarled strand she beckoned him to the outlet and plugged it in to check for faulty bulbs before unplugging.  Only then could Jug begin to hang them, stepping back down to be draped with the next strand when he was finished.  As they worked Betty noticed him looking at her strangely.  “What is it Jug?  You’ve been weird since you came back from Mrs Tate’s on Monday”</p><p>“I’ve always been weird Betts,” he laughed self deprecatingly.</p><p>“I don’t think you’re weird,” she retorted.  “I think you’re kind and thoughtful and generous.  No-one else would have bothered about how Pop would feel seeing the diner all ghostly and abandoned, only you.” He harrumphed, dismissing the praise, and she persisted in her questioning. “Did Mrs Tate say something to you?”</p><p>He looked at her seriously, considering.  Then he swallowed hard and took a deep breath.  “She asked where my girlfriend was.”</p><p>Betty gulped and felt her cheeks flush.</p><p>“I said that we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, just friends, and she said that she thought different.”  He chuckled quietly, not meeting her eye. “Anyway I told her that you were way out of my league, that a girl like you could never be interested in a guy like me, and she said that if I thought that I was nowhere near as smart as she thought I was.  Which was kind of a compliment but not.  And…well..anyway…” He seemed to run out of steam and the sentence dangled, unsecured, like the lights.</p><p>Betty understood what he was doing.  It was as if he were on one side of a frozen river, her on the other. He had stepped out in hope, reaching to her. To be the first to test the ice, not knowing if it would crack under him, took such courage. Since he had risked so much she supposed it was her turn to be a little brave and so, as she switched on the strand of lights he was holding, she also switched off the overhead light. She didn’t want their moment to be illuminated for the whole town like an Edward Hopper painting. She stepped closer to him, looking into his quizzical eyes and then, standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek gently, as she had wanted to a few days before.  “I don’t know about girls like me but, speaking for myself, I am extremely interested in a guy exactly like you.”</p><p>His brows knitted together and she was transported back by that expression of bemused concentration to those sunny afternoons, reading a Baxter Brothers story in the back yard, their heads bent close over the page. He'd be trying to figure out the mystery before they were even half way through the story, trying to get ahead of the denouement before the complexities had been delineated. He was clearly struggling a little with this plot twist.</p><p>“You’re overthinking it Juggie," she whispered and he looked into her eyes, searching them for an explanation. Whatever he found there seemed to untangle his confusion because his lips crashed onto hers, his hand on the back of her head, lights ravelling around them, his mouth pushing against hers.</p><p>She pulled back a little, "Hey, slow down. We may be in Pop’s but I'm not a burger," and he snorted a laugh and resumed the kiss more gently. When she felt his tongue against her lip, dragging insistently, she opened her mouth and he groaned against her before softly, thrillingly, allowing himself to explore her lips. She found that she was lightheaded but she couldn't say if it was because of her racing heart or lack of oxygen. She pulled back, placing gentle kisses along his jaw and then looking at his handsome face, seeing there the same expression of wonderment that she felt on her own.  The room was lit softly by the tiny spots of green and red light, they twinkled against his chest, illuminating his soft smile and reflecting in those beautiful, loving eyes. </p><p>He reached out his hand and stroked her cheek. “Wow," he muttered. "I never really understood why that was such a big deal before. I thought I was immune, above it, somehow. I'm really not." He lifted one of the strands of lights that he had been holding, and placed it reverently around her neck, kissing where it touched her shoulder, his hot breath making her gasp. “Can we just do that all the time now?” he whispered.</p><p>"We have to finish these lights. But then we should definitely do it some more," she giggled, and he shuffled out of the web of lights so she could untangle them all over again.</p><p>The following evening, as per Betty's instructions, posted on the door at the diner, most of Riverdale had turned out in heavy coats and boots to stand in front of Pop's, the neon and the Christmas lights combining to make the place glow brighter than any other building on the street. When the car came into view a cheer went up from the crowd and Josie and her Pussycats, installed above the facade, launched into their rendition of "Mele Kalikimaka.” Pop grinned and waved like he was in a parade, tears falling freely from his eyes, as his nephew drove slowly past, proud to be chauffeuring a hero of the town.</p><p>Jughead stood behind Betty, his arms over her shoulders, his chin resting on the pompom of her knitted hat, holding her close against the chill. Soon the car pulled out of sight, the cheers died away and the crowd dispersed. Smiling, he turned her around for a kiss. As they stood there in the parking lot, with the coloured lights reflecting in the wet asphalt, snow silently began to fall and he whispered “Merry Christmas, Betts.”</p>
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